Day 16

The night before, I made Kyle's birthday card for his fifteenth birthday half-heartedly. As I carried the card, with a sunny quote I know Kyle would hate, in my backpack I intended to slide it under his bedroom door.

After school however, I had a change of heart. Entering the hospice center, I walked directly to his room, which is not what I usually did. Kyle's room wasn't the first room I visited normally. As I opened the door however, I saw a nurse checking his blood pressure manually as he was snoring.

"Hello!" exclaimed this brand new nurse I didn't recognize. Kyle, didn't stir from his deep sleep. She noticed I wasn't looking at her and said, "He wasn't feeling too well so they gave him some medicine to help make him calm and he drifted off right to sleep."

I pulled out his birthday card and asked the nurse, "Do you have a marker?"

She gave me a black marker from her scrub pocket. "Here you go," she said cheerfully. I took the marker and wrote in big letters below the sunny quote: THANK YOU!

I left that day with a smile on my face and some weight lifted off of my shoulders. I didn't tell my mom what happened one day when I was the last kid to exit my gym class. One of the basketball stars of our school cornered me. When I tried to get away, he grabbed my arm and pulled me to him. "I'm not interested in whatever you're selling," I told him. Ever since then he'd been leaving me gushy poems, trying to corner me at the end of gym class, and the girls who made up his fan club took it upon themselves to make my school life difficult.

Still, I didn't want to burden my mom with this information. She had enough on her plate as it was, including being my mom. I thought I could handle it. I'll admit though, the last poem left me shook:

Honey, I'll tell you my plan

If I can't have you, then nobody can.

It was a shook feeling that Kyle guessed out of the blue. When he was texting his buddies, I wasn't expecting them to do much. They gave me peace of mind.

It happened during lunch. I was eating with my friend Lakeisha, when somebody I never saw before yelled, "Food fight!" and hit his tray full of spaghetti, tomato sauce, and milk at the star Quarterback. After that first throw, the Quarterback flung his own spaghetti tray at the guy and the chaos ensued after that. Food was flying everywhere and Lakeisha and I who was sitting at the edge of the cafeteria, exited the cafeteria to avoid getting hit.

Lakeisha shook her head as she said, "I'm going to use the bathroom to make sure no bits of food ended up in my weave!"

"Okay," I told her as she walked away from me. I was starting to head to my locker, when somebody grabbed my arm. I didn't even have to look to know who it was.

"Hey baby," he whispered in my ear.

"Leave me alone," I replied. Of course, my locker was located in a little nook at the dead end of the hall. He pinned me against the wall and as I struggled against his forearm which was pinning my shoulders down, we both got startled by someone clapping.

A guy completely dressed in black and who I didn't recognize was the one clapping and next to him was a girl with neon green stripes in her blonde hair. The girl was holding up her phone and smirking. "That's so cute! B-ball boy thinks he's a big man, holding down a girl half his height." She walks closer to us with her phone. "Well, I feel like a big girl today with my camera, recording all of this drama. In fact, I'm live streaming this through my Facebook."

His eyes widened as he stepped away from me. "I don't want no trouble," he replied with his hands up, backing away.

"Good. Then while I'm still recording, you'll hear MY words." She walks towards him and away from me to get a close up. "You will leave Renata alone or I will show the police my Facebook live video and see how they feel about what you did today. Are we clear?"

The B-ball player nods his head and starts to walk away. The girl shook her head and shut off her phone. "Run little bitch, run!" she yelled down the hall.

"Who...who are you?" I asked them both.

The goth boy said, "My name is Abraham and she's Tripoli. We're friends of Kyle."

Tripoli scoffed as she told Abraham, "You're his friend." Then, she looked at me and added, "I'm just a girl who owed Kyle a huge favor and am now happy it's all squared up."

My eyes watered slightly as I whisper, "Thank you Abraham and Tripoli."

"Later," replied Abraham as he waved goodbye before exiting the school.

Tripoli patted my shoulder as she replied, "Splashing cold water on your face helps with nerves. I suggest you do that. Nice meeting you, Renata. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to check if my boyfriend is still alive after the food fight he instigated."

"Wait, this was all planned?"

"Sorry you didn't know, but video evidence usually stops assholes like him in his tracks." Walking away from me she yelled over her shoulder, "You're Welcome!" Right before I was going to say thank you.

I took Tripoli's suggestion and splashed water ony face in the girls bathroom. When Lakeisha asked me, "Ren, what are you doing?"

"Trying to wake up," I replied. Kyle's friends...or friends and a girl who owed him one...went out of their way to orchestrate a plan to have my harrasser leave me alone once and for all. Thank you sounds like such a small phrase, when I consider they probably ditched school to take care of a girl they don't know. And just because Kyle asked them to.